I'minlikewithyou Hires New CEO, Changing Names. Next: Revenue

NYC-based online gaming startup I'minlikewithyou, founded and led until now by media-friendly 28-year-old Charles Forman, is getting some more adult supervision.

The company plans to announce today that it's hired Dan Porter as its chief executive. Forman, a talented game designer and programmer, will now focus on the company's aggressive plans to roll out 12 to 24 new games this year.

Porter last worked at Virgin, where he was SVP of Corporate Development, leading the company's venture investments and starting new companies. Before that, he worked for BMG Direct, part of the Bertelsmann conglomerate, and worked at startups -- for instance, he sold TicketWeb to Ticketmaster-Citysearch for $35.2 million in 2000.

His challenge: Turning I'minlikewithyou from a buzzy game site with no revenue into a real business.

How will that happen? The company will soon roll out premium "star" accounts, its first revenue generator. It also plans to sell in-game virtual goods, a market that's been a money-maker for some gaming companies.

As far as traffic goes, Porter says the site attracted somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million unique visitors last month, and that uniques are growing 20% a month. Players spent more than 50 million minutes on the site last month, suggesting that the average visitor played between 50-100 minutes during January. Not bad.

Porter will also handle operations, hiring, and raising money. Last summer, the company raised $1.5 million from Spark Capital, NYC's Betaworks, and angels like Ron Conway and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.